


White Sand Beach

by Mystical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystical/pseuds/Mystical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You knew she'd die before you.</p><p>You knew it'd hurt.</p><p>You never knew it'd hurt this much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't L---EAV-E

You lean your head on her cold shoulders and smile into the sunset, savouring the way she strokes your arm, webbed fingers brushing over your warmer skin in a way that’s definitely not unpleasant. You’re frailer now, more fragile than you were in your youth and if anyone else treated you the way she did now you would be affronted but she treated you like something to be treasured, not kept. She smells of the ocean and you can see the white, crusty circles of salt on her skin that she hadn’t washed off. She says there’s no need, but you know better; she can see you fading, deteriorating, wrinkles settling into your skin and she knows she doesn’t have much time left and you know you’re just a nanosecond in her infinitely long lifespan.

She leans down and places a soft kiss on your bed of unruly hair. “Water you thinking about?” she asked, and her voice is as clear as a freshwater stream running over cold stones and you suppouse that’s what she is. She is the ocean, she is the unfathomable depths pressing against your chest, sharp teeth flashing as she destroys you with nary a blink. She is the lagoon, the mixture of sand and mud that trickles between your toes. She is the gushing river and the stirless pond and the estuary that beckons you into its depths with open arms.

Your lime green eyes remain fixed on the sunset, squinting against the bright glare of red and orange and yellow over the ever-changing ocean. Age has made you sentimental, softened your rough edges but enforced your spine of steel. “I’m wondering how it’s possible for me to love you so much,” you say softly.

Black lips curl against your neck, against the skin that’s gotten softer with age and it might be shellfish (oops, selfish) of you but you’re glad you’ll die before her because you don’t want to imagine a life without her by your side. Her hand slides down from your shoulder, onto your waist as she pulls you flush against her body. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to, because you understand her more than you understand yourself, can read the tilt of her head and twitch of her lips and texture of her skin as easily as your favourite book.

*

When the sun sets, Jade turns and smiles and kisses you, and you cup her neck and feel wrinkles and sunspots and you despair the fact she’ll die before you because all you want is to spend forever with her. Forever, until your breath fades and you two are just another pair of incorporeal lovers melting into the mist.


	2. Immortality

“Fef-“

“I know.”

You hear the soft sigh of the ocean, taste the warm sun on your tongue and feel each individual grain of sand under your toes. Your blurry eyes remain fixed on the shallow grave and you wish that it would rain, wish that thunder would tear the skies apart so everyone can share your pain because the weather shouldn’t be this nice, not when she’s dead and _no no no you should’ve saved her you could’ve saved her -_

Your shoulders tremor as you try to hold back a sob and what will happen if you dig through the sand, dig through the dirt until your hands meet cool, smooth wood? What will happen if you pry open the casket and crawl inside and settle yourself over her cold body and breathe in the scent of spice and wood and

_and decay and illness and rot she’s fading, she’d been fading for so long and **you can’t stop it,** why, what’s wrong with you, why can’t you keep your matesprite she was your sunshine she was your everfin why why why why why_

even now you still smell the same stench of death and decay, the same scent that Aradia carried on her last legs of life, the same smell that all surviving humans had and you thought you could save her you thought you could win but you can’t and you didn’t and now she’s gone she’s gone forever and you’ll never see her green eyes again and it _hurt_ , god, it hurt so much.

A cool hands rests on your bare arm (too cold too cold you miss touches that are lowblood-warm) and you turn and bury your face in your kismesis’ shirt (he’s such a pompous jerk, getting dressed in such fineries even though you’re the only two here at this impromptu funeral), chest heaving and shoulders shaking as you cry and cry and cry because he’s the only one who knows, the only one who understands how it feels to lose everyone because of your lifespan and it’s _unfair,_ why are humans’ lives so short, why why why why can’t she live longer why can’t you live shorter _why._

Eridan rests a hand on your back. “She lasted the longest,” he says, his voice soft against your ear.

You dig your nails into his skin, hard enough that it has to hurt and you feel him tense beneath your touch, larger hands clutching tightly at your gray skin. “It’s unfair!” You screech, pushing your goggles into your black hair and glaring at him through tyrian tears. “It’s unfair and disgusting and she’s dead, Eridan, she’s _dead,_ they’ll all die and we’ll be the only ones left!” You hiccup and clutch tighter until you feel beads of purple well up from under your nails. “What’s the point if they all leave in the end?”

Your voice cracks and you slump against him, and look at you, looking to your kismesis for comfort because your matesprite’s dead, your moirail’s dead, yellow blood spilled after angering the wrong people, you don’t have anyone in the ashen quadrant and he’s the only one you have, the only one who understands and you hate him you hate him you hate him, you were the one who broke off your moirallegiance and you _hate_ him you hate him so much and in the end you won’t have anyone but him and-

“Get a hold of yourself.” His voice is a near growl as he yanks you away from him and holds you at arm’s length, glaring from his higher vantage point. “Look at you, snifflin’ all over the place ‘cause of a mere human.”

Anger, hot and **black** courses through you and you shriek, ripping his hands off your shoulders and shoving him back against the sand, feeling a surge of satisfaction as he stumbles and almost falls. “She’s naut a mere human!” You snarl, eyes wide and bright with so much anger and god you hate him so much. “She is my _matesprite!_ **And she’s dead!** ”

“Everyone dies!” You flinch as if you’d been slapped and half a decade ago his face would be twisted in a grimace of resignation, of hurt because you knew he was still flushed for you, as flushed as Karkat’s blood but now all you see is black, black black and some part of you throbs with sick pleasure and no no no you’re mourning you can’t be happy at this, not now. “Everyone dies an’ you can’t do a damn thing about it.” He steps closer and your first instinct is to step back but you don’t, you glare at him and dare him to continue. “You sittin’ here snivelin’ and weepin’ enough to fill a whole damn ocean ain’t gonna change a thing.” He takes another step toward you and roughly tilts your chin up, and his eyes soften and you can see Eridan the moirail, Eridan that you denied so long ago, god, how many sweeps had it been already?

“But you can do somefin about yourself.” His voice drops. “Jade wouldn’t want you cryin’ all over the place.” His lips curl into a sneer. “What’d you think she’d think if she could see you right now? You’re a damn pathetic sight.” You peel your lips away from your fangs but he glares. “I ain’t done talkin’. Yea, everyone’ll die an’ you’ll be left, boo hoo poor you bein’ cursed with immortality, but that doesn’t mean you gotta let go and throw a fuckin tantrum every time it happens. It happened when John an’ Rose an’ Dave died, it happened when Aradia an’ Sollux died an’ now it’s happenin’ again when Jade’s dead. You seein’ a pattern here? You ain’t the coddled princess anymore, Fef, an’ the world’s not gonna bend over backwards to please you. You can’t give up everytime someone ups and kneels over.”

 _I won’t let you._ The unspoken statement hangs in the air and you just stand there and stare at him and he stares back for a long, long while before he moves forward and brushes the tears away from your eyes.

You lean into his hand. “I loved her,” you whisper.

His touch is gentle, contrary to his earlier roughness. “I know. An’ you love me, an’ I love you, an’ she ain’t your whole world.”

 _It’s not that shrimple,_ you want to say but you keep your mouth shut because you think he already knows.


End file.
